From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 9:18 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Chukas, 5767


                                      

                                               The Snake Pit

  
             By Rabbi Joshua (happily known as The Hoffer) Hoffman          



  The people journeyed from Hor HaHor, to go around the land of Edom, and their spirit grew short. They complained against God and Moshe, asking why they were brought out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, with no bread and water, and saying that their souls had reached limits with the'’lechem haklokeil,’ or insubstantial food, a term they used to refer to the manna. God immediately punished them by sending burning snakes, which bit and killed multitudes of the people. The people told Moshe they had sinned, and asked him to pray to God to remove the snakes. Moshe complied, and God told him to make a burning snake and place it on a pole, “and it will be that anyone who had been bitten will look at it and live” (Bamidbar 21:8). Rabbi Yehudah Sharabi, in his work Siach Pinu, points out that the word meaning “and it will be,” used in this verse - vehayah - always refers to a situation of joy. Where, he asks, is the joy in this verse? True, God was explaining to Moshe how the snake would cure the people, but the entire situation can hardly be viewed as one of joy! Rabbi Sharabi himself answers that, according to the early commentators, looking at the snake helped cure, not only the previously suffered snake bite, but other kinds of illnesses, as well, so that at least something was gained through the experience. I would like to suggest two alternative answers, based on some broader understandings of the entire incident.


  Why, one may ask, was there such a quick, harsh, Divine reaction to the people's complaint? What was so terrible about their dissatisfaction with the manna? Rav Chaim Yaakov Goldvicht, z"l, founding Rosh HaYeshiva of Yeshivas Kerem B’Yavneh, explains, in his Asufos Ma’arochos, that the character of the manna was such that it necessitated the people to constantly turn to God in order to receive their daily sustenance. The Talmud in Yoma (76a) asks, why did God provide them with the manna on a daily basis? The answer is that a king who provides his son, on one day, with his needs for the entire year, will not hear from his son again until the next year, when his needs are again in need of being   fulfilled. God wanted the people to have to pray to Him, and so He provided them sustenance in a way that forced them to turn to Him every day. Moreover, the Talmud says that if a person acted properly, he would find his portion of the manna on his doorstep, but if he did not, he would have to go out and search for it. Although the kind of life that depended on the manna would seem, at first blush, difficult, it had the distinct advantage of keeping the people close to God.



  This basic nature of the manna, and the relationship with God which it generated, contrasted with the situation of the snake, who was punished by having to eat dust, or, as Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffmann explain, food that was covered with dust because it was always laying on the ground. Although, on the one hand, the snake was thus assured of a constant supply of food, on the either hand, as the Kotzker Rebbe and others explain, God was, in effect, telling the snake, 'here is your food, and don't bother me anymore'. By punishing the people with snakes, says Rabbi Goldvicht, he was telling them that their complaints about the manna indicated that they would rather be like the snake, who does not need to turn to God for his sustenance. However, God wants them to have a constant relationship with Him, and the form of food they received was just a means of generating that relationship. Based on Rabbi Goldvicht’s understanding of the punishment the people received for complaining about the manna, we can understand why an expression of joy is used. When the people repented, they did so out of a realization of the importance of bring close to God, and, so, when they looked at the snake on the pole in order to be cured, they did so out of the joy that comes through the renewal of ones connection to God, which is really the greatest joy one can experience in this world, namely, feeling that one is constantly in God’s presence.


  Another explanation for the gravity of the sin that the complaint about the man constituted is given by the Slonimer Rebbe, z’l. in his Nesivos HaShalom . He writes that the people were expressing dissatisfaction with their entire experience in the wilderness, in which their needs were all taken care of for them. Although living in this way provided its challenges, it is necessary for a person to realize that whatever situation he happens to find himself in, that is the precise situation that God wants him to be in at the moment, and it is precisely through that situation that he can grow and be the person he is supposed to be. Although he does not say this, the Slonimer Rebbe's explanation seems to reflect the teaching of the Bal Shem Tov, in explanation of the verse in Tehillim that is usually translated as “ I have placed God before me constantly. The Baal Shem Tov, however, gives the word ‘shivisi,’ – I have placed. – an additional meaning, explaining it as coming form the word ‘shaveh,’ or equal. All situations in life, he explains, should be viewed equally, because God, with His constant providence, always places us in the situation that we need to be in at that time. If we view the swift divine punishment for the complaint about the manna in this way, we can then suggest a different reason for the use of an expression of joy when it describes the people looking at the snake on the pole. In effect, we are being told that the people looked at the snake on the pole with joy out of an recognition that the situation they now were in was exactly what they needed at the time, and, therefore, was something to rejoice about.  In this way, they truly repented for the attitude which had generated the swift harsh divine punishment they had received.



  Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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